Why does so much classical music sound unfinished?

Magic

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Sometimes composers actually want their music to sound incomplete, says Ivan Hewett.

You might ask why composers would do such an odd thing, and one straightforward answer is; to keep people listening. It’s been a common trick in pop music every since A Hard Day’s Night to keep the listeners hanging on for the next track on an album, by fading out a song rather than ending it. Jazz musicians do something similar, by ending a piece on a surprising harmony.

Schumann was a master of this effect. The first song in Dichterliebe circles round on itself, and at the end we’re left hanging.



Why does so much classical music sound unfinished? - Telegraph
 

LG

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Won't bother trying to match wits with Shadow and Vehicle...;)...but ending a song is one of the most difficult things for anyone to manage. How many rocks songs repeat the same chorus/verse at the end and the producer just fades it out to silence? More than I can count.

It's like an artist painting, deciding when it's finished is excruciating for a lot of them

I'm a big classical fan but not of 'lieders or opera', for me it's the symphonies, concertos and sonatas that I listen to. Robert Schumann gets overlooked by many, but his 4 symphonies and cello concerto are excellent.:mn:
 

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